Apex Book Company

In the search for artificial intelligence, the question ‘What is human?’ is used to draw a line between man and machine. As, more and more, computers are able to replicate things a person can do, the definition of what it means to be human changes in response. The Turing test, for example, is a test for determining whether a computer can display human-like intelligence. Still, a computer that could pass the test would not be considered human. It would just be recognized as intelligent. There is a difference between that which is intelligent and that which is human. (Sometimes more of a difference than we would like.)

Another facet of the question ‘What is human?’ addresses the differences between human beings and other members of the animal kingdom. If, in some respects, tiny variations in DNA are all that separate human beings physically from their closest primate relatives, where is the genetic line drawn between what is human and what is not? (There are easy answers from a species perspective—only members of the same species can produce viable offspring—but we’re not looking for easy answers here.)

The question of what is human is addressed by two stories in the March issue of Apex Magazine: “The Puma” by Theodora Goss and “The Mind of a Pig” by Ekaterina Sedia. (Note: There will be spoilers for these stories in this article. If you haven’t read them both, go back and read them now. This article will wait.) In “The Puma,” we hear the story of a puma that was remade into a woman by the infamous Doctor Moreau. In “The Mind of a Pig,” we’re introduced to a pig with the capacity to think and write, although not quite in the way we’re familiar with from Charlotte’s Web. Both these stories approach the question of what is human but from different angles. “The Puma” asks if something that was not human can become human, and if something that was human can lose its humanity. “The Mind of a Pig” asks if something having human parts is at least partly human. With the number of budget cuts to scientific inquiry, recently, perhaps the best way to answer these questions is through fiction.

In “The Puma,” Prendick is initially uncertain whether Catherine (or “Cat therein”) is human. Upon meeting her again, the first thing he does is check to see if she still retains any of the physical characteristics of a puma. Beyond the slightly unsettling length of some of her teeth, he can find little to separate her from any other English woman. Still, even though Catherine claims humanity by claiming to be his wife, he notes the animal elements she has retained: ‘Although she looked and laughed at me like an English lady, she still thought with the mind of a beast.’

However, Prendick doesn’t feel all of the animalistic characteristics she has retained are evil.

‘[S]he has never lied to me. It takes a man to do that.’

Even so, Catherine deplores the animal in human beings as much as she deplored those Beast Men Moreau never brought to perfection. For example, when Montgomery regresses after spending too much time with the Beast Men on Moreau’s island, Catherine shoots him.

‘At my feet lay the body of the Hyena-Swine. Beyond him lay M’Ling, a Wolf Woman, one of the Pig Men, and the Gorilla Man, Montgomery.

“You killed him,” I said.

“He became one of them,” she said, out of the darkness.’

The idea Catherine brings to Prendick incorporates her plan to keep human beings from returning to an animalistic state as well as her desire to continue her own race and the work of her ‘father,’ Moreau. As she lays out her plan, two things become clear. One is that she is just as intelligent as any human being, even bound as she is by the strictures of the time that do not allow women to attend universities. The other is that she sees human beings as prey, for herself and her children, and has no moral compunctions about this. Instead, she sees the issue with scientific detachment, invoking Darwin and other proponents of natural selection to prove her cause just.

‘“The operation of natural selection is necessary for evolution. Without selective pressure, a species stagnates, perhaps even degenerates, reverting to atavistic forms. How long has it been since selective pressure operated on the human species? You have killed all your predators.”’

Perhaps animals would make better scientists because they do not attach moral weight to what they find through logic, causing less bias in the results. For Catherine, science is a means to an end. As are human beings.

But morality is part of what makes people human. (Criminals are often referred to as ‘inhuman’ or ‘monsters’ when they defy human moral codes.) How, then, does this moral sense apply to the way human beings treat animals, especially an animal with human parts? In “The Mind of a Pig,” Cassie’s Dad supplies one argument as to why an animal could never be human, even if it harbored human organs:

‘“[Joel cannot be sentient] because pigs did not evolve with this brain… It’s like sewing albatross’ wings on a pigeon – it won’t make him a better flyer, and chances are that he won’t fly at all. Every animal is made by evolution, and all parts should fit together to function. Joel’s DNA says that he’s a pig, and thus he will remain a pig forever, whether we furnish him with a different brain or not. He has no other human equipment, such as neurotransmitters and sensory system, and thus he cannot make use of the brain.”’

However, earlier in the conversation with the reporter, Cassie’s Dad explains that pigs are similar to human beings, which is why they make such good housings for donor organs. This option is a lot less messy.

‘“There was a lot of controversy over human cloning – human rights activists feared that people will be cloned only to harvest their organs. That never happened, of course – it is much easier to grow human organs in pigs, and there’s a whole lot fewer ethical questions.”’

Still, even though there are fewer ethical questions, nobody bothers to investigate them. Cassie’s Dad finds it more convenient to assume his beliefs are true rather than testing them scientifically. So, for the time being, Joel is treated as one of the family, allowed to roam the house, until he becomes more self-aware due to his first casual glance in a mirror.

Up until that point, he believes—like many household pets seem to believe—that he is just another person. However, afterward, his illusions are quickly stripped away. He discovers his purpose—to ‘keep a brain warm’ for an accident victim who might need it—and after an attempt at escaping, learns that his time is rapidly coming. In desperation, he hatches a plan (without the help of a friendly spider, in this case) to communicate in order to demonstrate his love and his intelligence, but it’s too little too late.

In a final scene that echoes Flowers for Algernon, we can only watch as Joel slowly loses more and more of himself for the sacrifice he has made. Unlike the other pigs on the farm that grow human parts they cannot live without, Joel does not have to sacrifice his life. Instead, he is forced to sacrifice himself so a human might live—and potentially love—where he could not because of his form. Still, is it all bad for Joel?

‘He was treated well, and he had anything a pig could desire. And it was getting even better – every day, he found that he had fewer things to worry about, that the concerns of yesterday made no sense today, and often left no memory. He had forgotten the smell of blood, and the searing pain, and the sickening sound of the tissue tearing like fabric. Soon, he would be truly happy.’

If Joel had been human, how might this last section have been read differently?

Do we judge Moreau’s Beast Men, and human animals like Joel, by human standards or by those of animals? Is Catherine bound by human morality because she is human in form? Is Joel’s deterioration less of a tragedy because he is a pig? If we judge them by human standards, Joel is a victim and Catherine is a monster, despite what was done to her and her intentions, which she believes to be noble. But, by law, neither of these characters would be entitled to recompense for the treatment they received because they are not considered human. They are exceptions that may change the definition of what is human, but only to make it more exclusive. So what is human? Neither of these.

A native of the land of Minnesota Nice, Sarah Brandel is an author, editor, and frustrated evil genius. (A BA in English from Stanford University and an MFA in Writing from Hamline University generally lead to slower, less cataclysmic methods of world domination, though attending Clarion West in 1999 and Viable Paradise XII in 2008 has given her a few ideas.) The emeralds in this picture–taken at Kohinoor Jewellers in Agra, India–were too small for her death ray, so it remains a work in progress, much like her web site, www.sarahbrandel.com. You can also read her work in Net Author’s E2K, Aberrant Dreams, and the anthology Thou Shalt Not… from Dark Cloud Press.